The Consciousness Of Race And Sexual Distinction In The Color Purple

Divided into two chapters, the thesis mainly expounds the consciousness of race and sexual distinction in The Color Purple, written by famous Afro-American woman writer Alice Walker. Chapter One is focused on the content of anti-racism of the novel. At this aspect, The Color Purple concerns dissemination of the early Afro-American literary tradition, rather than re-interpreting the tradition or bringing forth new ideas from it. Therefore, the first section of this chapter chronologically considers the characteristics of Afro-American outstanding novels in the early three stages. Careful contrast between these novels and The Color Purple, this section shows up some key differences and similarities, and reveals the literary origin of the latter. The first stages is before the American Civil War(1853－1865). Black slave narratives and the early Afro-American novels were the main literary forms during this period. Most of them shared the same theme that concentrated on the exposure and condemnation of the slavery. Springing from the authors' own experiences, moreover, these novels appeared like somewhat distinctive autobiography. The backgrounds of the stories involved the gradual transition from the south plantations in black slave narratives to the north cities in the early Afro-American novels. Furthermore, the style of the novels in this period showed another characteristic: they are more legendary than realistic. By contrast, The Color Purple possesses the traditional theme of anti-racism, and also stems from the writer's experiences, since Walker's grandmother is the prototype of the heroine Celie. Similarly, the background of the story in the novel also changes from the South to the North. At last, The Color Purple also manifests obviously a legendary story by means of dramatically depicting the plot and the characters' experiences, while the realistic parts of the novel obtained more emphasis from the writer. The second stage is the period after the Civil War(1865－1902). Since the Civil War and the Declaration of Liberation did not bring them real equality and freedom, Afro-American writers were trapped in the deep disappointment to the cruel reality and the confidence-loss to the future, and yielded to the present social conditions, which revealed unintentionally in their novels. Although still remained the condemnation of the slavery, the novels in this period paid more attention to the portrayal of female characters and showed more optimistic spirit for their destiny. By contrast, in The Color Purple, Walker is also skeptical about whether the justice can ultimately overcome the evil. However, the portrayal of female characters in her novels acquires greater achievement since these characters are much closer to the bottom of life and therefore appears to be more persuasive, and is regarded as one of her major contributions towards Afro-American women literature. The third one is before the World War I. While persisting in the traditional theme of anti-racism, the novels in this period re-emphasized the legendary depiction, which had been faded in the second stage, and initially combined the African cultural tradition and European classic myths into the system of narration. In this section, a parallel contrast between Searching for Silver Fleeces written by Dubois and The Color Purple is held to discuss their connection with that combination. The second section of Chapter One deals with the influence of African folk custom that embodies oral cultural tradition on the creation of the novel. It also involves the remarkable application of the three main contents included religion, folk music and the homeland Africa. When involving the religious question, the Afro-American novels often by the satiric writing style touched the Caucasian supreme myth and the ceremony. Close to Christianity's mythical system formally, their cultural contents belong to their nation. This feature is incisively manifested in The Color Purple: the relentless subversion to Christianity classical work Holy Bible...